John Branch

“Most of the physical pain was hidden, but some could be seen in the dazed expressions, the lost teeth, the bleeding faces. The emotional toll, the stress, the world, the expectations was masked behind a charade of showmanship and a false display of fearlessness. Like most enforcers, Derek never saw any of that coming, the constancy of pain and the coldcocking of emotion.”
― John Branch, Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard

“What Derek could not comprehend was the cumlative damage in his brain, the tau proteins gathering in tiny brown spots in his pink frontal lobe and other recesses of his mind, strangling the cells, one subconcussive blow at a time.”
― John Branch, Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard